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Public Opinion
In what is widely considered the most influential book ever written by Walter Lippmann, the late journalist and social critic provides a fundamental treatise on the nature of human information and communication. As Michael Curtis indicates in his introduction to this edition. Public Opinion qualifies as a classic by virtue of its systematic brilliance and literary grace. The work is divided into eight parts, covering such varied issues as stereotypes, image making, and organized intelligence. The study begins with an analysis of "the world outside and the pictures in our heads, " a leitmotif that starts with issues of censorship and privacy, speed, words, and clarity, and ends with a careful survey of the modern newspaper. The work is a showcase for Lippmann's vast erudition. He easily integrated the historical, psychological, and philosophical literature of his day, and in every instance showed how relevant intellectual formations were to the ordinary operations of everyday life. Public Opinion is of enduring significance for communications scholars, historians, sociologists, and political scientists.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1922
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7352 people want to read
About the author
Walter Lippmann
142 books167 followersWalter Lippmann was an American intellectual, writer, reporter, and political commentator who gained notoriety for being among the first to introduce the concept of Cold War. Lippmann was twice awarded (1958 and 1962) a Pulitzer Prize for his syndicated newspaper column, "Today and Tomorrow."
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November 26, 2024
A very important book in its time. And in ours.
Lippmann warned 100 years ago about the dangers of too much democracy. Lippman argued that the American populace (“the bewildered herd”) must not overly influence government policy. Instead of a true democracy, in which the people directly control the country, Lippman advocated for maintaining a protective intermediary of sophisticated elites – in politics, the press and business – lodged between the people and the government. This structure, according to Lippmann, would maintain stability and ensure rational policy making.
A century later, the two elections of Donald Trump lend credence to Lippmann's thesis. Trump's primary communication method as president is social media, an unfiltered channel connecting him directly to voters. Trump's elections and presidencies broadly disempower elite intermediaries – including GOP party elders, liberal business leaders and mainstream media institutions – long accustomed to directly influencing American governance.
As Lippman predicted, it did not go well. Paradoxically, Trump’s Twitter version of direct democracy sharply decreases the strength of democratic self-governance, culminating in Trump’s Twitter-organized mob storming the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 as Congress certified the presidential election.
This rise in democracy has only intensified in the years since Trump was elected, as the intermediaries between power and the people continue to disintegrate.
Lippmann would be shuddering.
Again, social media is the preeminent example. Platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram allow politicians to bypass traditional media gatekeepers and communicate directly with voters. Anyone online can instantaneously publish their thoughts, with each tweet or post potentially reverberating around the globe. This personal empowerment--a revolutionary transformation--has coincided with a rise in populism around the world.
Are these democratic revolutions a good thing? Put another way, is civilization better off with sophisticated elites controlling the framework of society – or is it better having the people, unrestrained, barreling forward with the shackles thrown off?
Striking the right balance between elite influence and popular control is as complex as it is important. Yet it is fast becoming merely an academic subject. The trend line is clear: Lippman's intermediaries are dying on the vine.
For better or worse, the future belongs to the herd.
Lippmann warned 100 years ago about the dangers of too much democracy. Lippman argued that the American populace (“the bewildered herd”) must not overly influence government policy. Instead of a true democracy, in which the people directly control the country, Lippman advocated for maintaining a protective intermediary of sophisticated elites – in politics, the press and business – lodged between the people and the government. This structure, according to Lippmann, would maintain stability and ensure rational policy making.
A century later, the two elections of Donald Trump lend credence to Lippmann's thesis. Trump's primary communication method as president is social media, an unfiltered channel connecting him directly to voters. Trump's elections and presidencies broadly disempower elite intermediaries – including GOP party elders, liberal business leaders and mainstream media institutions – long accustomed to directly influencing American governance.
As Lippman predicted, it did not go well. Paradoxically, Trump’s Twitter version of direct democracy sharply decreases the strength of democratic self-governance, culminating in Trump’s Twitter-organized mob storming the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 as Congress certified the presidential election.
This rise in democracy has only intensified in the years since Trump was elected, as the intermediaries between power and the people continue to disintegrate.
Lippmann would be shuddering.
Again, social media is the preeminent example. Platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram allow politicians to bypass traditional media gatekeepers and communicate directly with voters. Anyone online can instantaneously publish their thoughts, with each tweet or post potentially reverberating around the globe. This personal empowerment--a revolutionary transformation--has coincided with a rise in populism around the world.
Are these democratic revolutions a good thing? Put another way, is civilization better off with sophisticated elites controlling the framework of society – or is it better having the people, unrestrained, barreling forward with the shackles thrown off?
Striking the right balance between elite influence and popular control is as complex as it is important. Yet it is fast becoming merely an academic subject. The trend line is clear: Lippman's intermediaries are dying on the vine.
For better or worse, the future belongs to the herd.
September 1, 2014
I read this book after reading Brian's review here http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Where this book is really quite interesting is in the fact that it is a kind of modernisation of Plato’s Republic. I’m not just saying that because it starts by quoting the allegory of the cave, but because all of the central ideas of the book seem to me to be essentially Platonic. For example, democracy is presented as a really good idea ‘in theory’, but one that is incapable of working in practice. This is put forward for much the same reason’s Plato used in criticising democracy: that it is too easy to be perverted by flatterers, that 'the people' are too blinded by their day-to-day needs to understand the great sweep of history, and that the masses are lead more by their loins and stomachs than by their reason.
But this book also updates Plato by reference to what was at the time the latest in psychological research which shows that mere humans don’t cope very well with complexity. The problem is that the world is an incredibly complex place. People understand their own needs quite well, but, and this is where the book is much more intelligent than say, works by Hayek or Friedman, an understanding of these immediate needs simply isn’t enough to understand the complexities of life in society. Where Hayek and Friedman resolve this complication by essentially denying society (see Margaret Thatcher’s famous ‘there is no such thing as society, there are individuals and there are families’) – Lippmann does quite the opposite. He says that because there is such a thing as society and since the path necessary to forge society onward is too complex to be understood by the great mass of humanity, there is a need for ‘experts’ to mould the minds of people in society so that they choose the right path. His definition of an expert as someone disinterested and a kind of boffin is also amusing.
Given people are confronted by complexity all of the time the solution they have for dealing with this complexity is essentially to resort to stereotypes. And he doesn’t limit this just to the great unwashed – everyone is guilty of these simplifications. The problem is we couldn't function without such simplifications – but obviously enough, our simplified view always leaves us in danger of choosing the wrong path – and, again, this is why those disinterested souls (what Plato referred to as Philosopher Kings) need to intervene to ensure that government of the people and for the people doesn’t end up government by the people. The people are never disinterested enough to make good rulers. And when they vote for something they don't vote for a single reason - but for a complexity of reasons, with people voting for the same candidate often for quite opposite reasons. This part of the book was particularly interesting.
Many of the same arguments put today about why we can’t really have a free press where also standard then, it seems - and I hadn't really expected this. For example, you might be excused for believing that it was the internet that brought about the argument that because we aren’t prepared to pay for our news, that we need to expect that those who will pay for our news, advertisers, will filter what we read through their perspective and in their interests. But it is argued here that the little amount we are prepared to pay for newspapers, even back then, also meant that the news was effectively free and therefore advertising has always played this role.
The best of this was his discussion of why strike action is generally portrayed badly in the press. To Lippmann it is simply a matter of self-interest. Not just the self interest of the ruling class – you know, the owners of the factories being more or less the same group as the owners of the papers and so the papers generally taking their side as a matter of course. But rather it is also the self-interest of the readers. The readers, on average, are unlikely to be directly involved in the strike – but, if the strike is effective, they are likely to be affected by the strike. Perhaps the striking factory makes something they need to buy. Perhaps it will stop them being able to work themselves through the lack of supply of something they use in their work – such being the interconnections of life in society. So, the fact strike action is likely to have a negative impact on the reader – much more likely that than it is to have a positive impact on them – it is fairly safe for newspapers to not be on the side of the strikers. Also, the reasons why people go on strike generally either sound selfish or are too complicated to make into a simple story to tell. Anyway, people think in stereotypes and one of the stereotypes is that strikes are always bad. Now, I still hold to the naïve view that newspapers advance the class interests of their owners and that is part of the reason why strikes are generally portrayed as bad – but I did find this alternative view interesting too.
There is, and always will be, something chilling in the Platonic vision of the master race finding useful lies to tell to the great mass of ill-informed humanity so as to distract and direct them towards the best of all possible worlds. But at least there is an honesty to this book that is quite missing from so much else today. That people like Murdoch act out these views today is not in the least hidden by the fact they say nearly the exact opposite of what they do in practice. Give me the chilling truth over the pacifying lie any day.
A lot of this book is quite dated now - I'm not sure how interesting the discussion on guild socialism is, to be honest, and many of the discussions on WW1 were overly long for me and too specific for me to really see their worth in supporting the argument of the book - but I think you could nearly get away with reading the first and last chapters of this to get enough of an overview to be going on with.
Where this book is really quite interesting is in the fact that it is a kind of modernisation of Plato’s Republic. I’m not just saying that because it starts by quoting the allegory of the cave, but because all of the central ideas of the book seem to me to be essentially Platonic. For example, democracy is presented as a really good idea ‘in theory’, but one that is incapable of working in practice. This is put forward for much the same reason’s Plato used in criticising democracy: that it is too easy to be perverted by flatterers, that 'the people' are too blinded by their day-to-day needs to understand the great sweep of history, and that the masses are lead more by their loins and stomachs than by their reason.
But this book also updates Plato by reference to what was at the time the latest in psychological research which shows that mere humans don’t cope very well with complexity. The problem is that the world is an incredibly complex place. People understand their own needs quite well, but, and this is where the book is much more intelligent than say, works by Hayek or Friedman, an understanding of these immediate needs simply isn’t enough to understand the complexities of life in society. Where Hayek and Friedman resolve this complication by essentially denying society (see Margaret Thatcher’s famous ‘there is no such thing as society, there are individuals and there are families’) – Lippmann does quite the opposite. He says that because there is such a thing as society and since the path necessary to forge society onward is too complex to be understood by the great mass of humanity, there is a need for ‘experts’ to mould the minds of people in society so that they choose the right path. His definition of an expert as someone disinterested and a kind of boffin is also amusing.
Given people are confronted by complexity all of the time the solution they have for dealing with this complexity is essentially to resort to stereotypes. And he doesn’t limit this just to the great unwashed – everyone is guilty of these simplifications. The problem is we couldn't function without such simplifications – but obviously enough, our simplified view always leaves us in danger of choosing the wrong path – and, again, this is why those disinterested souls (what Plato referred to as Philosopher Kings) need to intervene to ensure that government of the people and for the people doesn’t end up government by the people. The people are never disinterested enough to make good rulers. And when they vote for something they don't vote for a single reason - but for a complexity of reasons, with people voting for the same candidate often for quite opposite reasons. This part of the book was particularly interesting.
Many of the same arguments put today about why we can’t really have a free press where also standard then, it seems - and I hadn't really expected this. For example, you might be excused for believing that it was the internet that brought about the argument that because we aren’t prepared to pay for our news, that we need to expect that those who will pay for our news, advertisers, will filter what we read through their perspective and in their interests. But it is argued here that the little amount we are prepared to pay for newspapers, even back then, also meant that the news was effectively free and therefore advertising has always played this role.
The best of this was his discussion of why strike action is generally portrayed badly in the press. To Lippmann it is simply a matter of self-interest. Not just the self interest of the ruling class – you know, the owners of the factories being more or less the same group as the owners of the papers and so the papers generally taking their side as a matter of course. But rather it is also the self-interest of the readers. The readers, on average, are unlikely to be directly involved in the strike – but, if the strike is effective, they are likely to be affected by the strike. Perhaps the striking factory makes something they need to buy. Perhaps it will stop them being able to work themselves through the lack of supply of something they use in their work – such being the interconnections of life in society. So, the fact strike action is likely to have a negative impact on the reader – much more likely that than it is to have a positive impact on them – it is fairly safe for newspapers to not be on the side of the strikers. Also, the reasons why people go on strike generally either sound selfish or are too complicated to make into a simple story to tell. Anyway, people think in stereotypes and one of the stereotypes is that strikes are always bad. Now, I still hold to the naïve view that newspapers advance the class interests of their owners and that is part of the reason why strikes are generally portrayed as bad – but I did find this alternative view interesting too.
There is, and always will be, something chilling in the Platonic vision of the master race finding useful lies to tell to the great mass of ill-informed humanity so as to distract and direct them towards the best of all possible worlds. But at least there is an honesty to this book that is quite missing from so much else today. That people like Murdoch act out these views today is not in the least hidden by the fact they say nearly the exact opposite of what they do in practice. Give me the chilling truth over the pacifying lie any day.
A lot of this book is quite dated now - I'm not sure how interesting the discussion on guild socialism is, to be honest, and many of the discussions on WW1 were overly long for me and too specific for me to really see their worth in supporting the argument of the book - but I think you could nearly get away with reading the first and last chapters of this to get enough of an overview to be going on with.
June 5, 2019
Want to understand the last hundred years, and maybe the next hundred, in terms of the interplay between mass media and people's assumptions? The short book is an awfully good start.
November 7, 2013
This book is unfairly maligned because Chomsky holds it out as an example of elite liberal ideology (and it is a fair example in that regard), but Lippmann has a point about "public opinion". He wasn't the first or last to point out that the spontaneous majorities on various subjects are not necessarily rational or advantageous, and that they usually *aren't* when the public bases opinions off of sketchy information (and that this is a common phenomenon). Further, his argument that news and the truth are distinct should be uncontroversial in 2013. His point that they *can not* be the same thing, because truth *can not* be delivered in easily digestible pieces, should also ring true to most critical minds witnessing the so-called "Information Age" play out.
What makes Lippmann so unpopular is his "solution" to the problems of human ignorance and irrationality in a democracy: experts. Experts help wrap up a real problem that Lippmann describes quite vividly, but Lippmann does not seem to accept that those who make decisions (who in his mind must be distinct from experts---and in fact he sees an institutionalization of independent intelligence gatherers protected from legislators and the executive) are still subject to the bulk of the problems he describes. A President is not an expert, zhe must rely on experts to form a judgment and make a decision, and so ultimately a President must be an "expert of experts". All the problems about dealing with an unseen environment remain, only they are pushed farther down the line a bit.
What makes Lippmann so unpopular is his "solution" to the problems of human ignorance and irrationality in a democracy: experts. Experts help wrap up a real problem that Lippmann describes quite vividly, but Lippmann does not seem to accept that those who make decisions (who in his mind must be distinct from experts---and in fact he sees an institutionalization of independent intelligence gatherers protected from legislators and the executive) are still subject to the bulk of the problems he describes. A President is not an expert, zhe must rely on experts to form a judgment and make a decision, and so ultimately a President must be an "expert of experts". All the problems about dealing with an unseen environment remain, only they are pushed farther down the line a bit.
November 9, 2024
Ако трябва да дам определение на тази (известна) книга на Липман в две думи, то те биха били “непоносимо скучна”. Толкова непоносимо скучна, че въпреки краткия си обем, изглежда сякаш няма край.
Това съвсем не се дължи на факта, че първото издание е над 100 годишно - от 1922 г. Нито се провокира от различната епоха - първата световна война скоро е свършила, а нейните реалности есе още не са започнали да се схващат в цялост, и единствените информационни мрежи са тези на вестниците (а не интернет). Не, просто Липман сам усложнява цялото си изложение, хвърчейки в най-различни посоки.
Някаква цялост от разписаната от Липман каша би могло да е:
✔️ светът е непознаваем, хаотичен и объркан,
НО
✔️ обществата се състоят от разнообразни социални групи, които може иначе да не си говорят една с друга, но всяка сама за себе си си е изградила представа за света и морален кодекс, споделени между членовете ѝ,
И
✔️ тази представа, назована “стереотип”, е грубо и неточно, но пестящо време и усилия обобщение на вселената и морала на съответната група, основата на идентичността и самоличността ѝ - всяко противоречие на стереотипа ще бъде изтласкано като несъществуващо, или…ще се формира нов стереотип,
КАТО
✔️ различните групи, споделящи различни стереотипи, са в състояние да се обединят около ярък символ, който обаче всяка група ще си тълкува леко по своему,
КАТО
✔️ ключът е в предизвиканата и споделена емоция, а не в споделените факти. Предизвиканата и разръчкана с подходяща пръчка емоция е вътъкът, лепилото на обединението,
А
✔️ лидерите на всяка социална група - винаги има лидери - задават тона и подлежат на влияние, което ще се разпростре и сред общността. Във време на война или извънредна ситуация, тези лидери не бива да разчитат на демокрация или обсъждане, защото е по-важно да се действа единно, отколкото да се анализират мнения в спора. И правилното мнение следва да отстъпи пред грешното мнение, в името на единството и на символа и на действието. С две думи - битият - бит,
И
✔️ информационните потоци са несъвършени, защото се инициират от несъвършени медии към несъвършени читатели, описвайки несъвършени институции и пропускайки всичко, което не е “новина” според техните критерии.
Липман като че ли мрази последователното изложение и държи да разбърква казана до неузнаваемост, оставайки постоянен единствено в твърдението си, че светът е непознаваем, а човешките възможности и възприятия са ограничени като качество, обхват и време. Поради което, на практика, животно като “обществено мнение” не съществува, но пък стереотипите обединяват различните прослойки, а символите дават огромен заряд (и на тях може да се влияе, за да се изпрати и получи съобщение между властта и, хм, народа). Като в играта влизат и медиите, които подлежат на анализ и, разбира се, на манипулация.
Нищо кой знае колко ново, но за 1922 г, предполагам, изложението за произхода и ролята на стереотипите като общи схеми за “употреба” и ключ за разбиране на големи маси хора е било новаторско. Ограниченията на демокрацията и “нуждата” от силен автократски юмрук, който да тресне “обединителски” по масата и по главите на хората в ситуации на “спецоперации” и извънредни ситуации, предполагам, са привлекли “Катехон” към конкретното заглавие. Само че 1922 г. не е 2022 г., (то и за 1922 г. този възглед е спорен), а Липман можеше да напише статия, вместо да се разлива в разни ненужни лабиринти. Статията би била интересна.
Това съвсем не се дължи на факта, че първото издание е над 100 годишно - от 1922 г. Нито се провокира от различната епоха - първата световна война скоро е свършила, а нейните реалности есе още не са започнали да се схващат в цялост, и единствените информационни мрежи са тези на вестниците (а не интернет). Не, просто Липман сам усложнява цялото си изложение, хвърчейки в най-различни посоки.
Някаква цялост от разписаната от Липман каша би могло да е:
✔️ светът е непознаваем, хаотичен и объркан,
НО
✔️ обществата се състоят от разнообразни социални групи, които може иначе да не си говорят една с друга, но всяка сама за себе си си е изградила представа за света и морален кодекс, споделени между членовете ѝ,
И
✔️ тази представа, назована “стереотип”, е грубо и неточно, но пестящо време и усилия обобщение на вселената и морала на съответната група, основата на идентичността и самоличността ѝ - всяко противоречие на стереотипа ще бъде изтласкано като несъществуващо, или…ще се формира нов стереотип,
КАТО
✔️ различните групи, споделящи различни стереотипи, са в състояние да се обединят около ярък символ, който обаче всяка група ще си тълкува леко по своему,
КАТО
✔️ ключът е в предизвиканата и споделена емоция, а не в споделените факти. Предизвиканата и разръчкана с подходяща пръчка емоция е вътъкът, лепилото на обединението,
А
✔️ лидерите на всяка социална група - винаги има лидери - задават тона и подлежат на влияние, което ще се разпростре и сред общността. Във време на война или извънредна ситуация, тези лидери не бива да разчитат на демокрация или обсъждане, защото е по-важно да се действа единно, отколкото да се анализират мнения в спора. И правилното мнение следва да отстъпи пред грешното мнение, в името на единството и на символа и на действието. С две думи - битият - бит,
И
✔️ информационните потоци са несъвършени, защото се инициират от несъвършени медии към несъвършени читатели, описвайки несъвършени институции и пропускайки всичко, което не е “новина” според техните критерии.
Липман като че ли мрази последователното изложение и държи да разбърква казана до неузнаваемост, оставайки постоянен единствено в твърдението си, че светът е непознаваем, а човешките възможности и възприятия са ограничени като качество, обхват и време. Поради което, на практика, животно като “обществено мнение” не съществува, но пък стереотипите обединяват различните прослойки, а символите дават огромен заряд (и на тях може да се влияе, за да се изпрати и получи съобщение между властта и, хм, народа). Като в играта влизат и медиите, които подлежат на анализ и, разбира се, на манипулация.
Нищо кой знае колко ново, но за 1922 г, предполагам, изложението за произхода и ролята на стереотипите като общи схеми за “употреба” и ключ за разбиране на големи маси хора е било новаторско. Ограниченията на демокрацията и “нуждата” от силен автократски юмрук, който да тресне “обединителски” по масата и по главите на хората в ситуации на “спецоперации” и извънредни ситуации, предполагам, са привлекли “Катехон” към конкретното заглавие. Само че 1922 г. не е 2022 г., (то и за 1922 г. този възглед е спорен), а Липман можеше да напише статия, вместо да се разлива в разни ненужни лабиринти. Статията би била интересна.
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May 3, 2024The Century of the Self’i izlerken gözüme çarpan, not aldığım bir isimdi Lippmann. Public Opinion en önemli kitabı kabul ediyor. Lippmann çalışmaları ve hayatıyla önemli biri. İki kez Pulitzer Ödülü alıyor. Dönemin psikoloji tartışmalarını büyük ölçüde etkiliyor. Bütün tanıtımlarda stereotip ve sahte gerçek kavramlarını literatüre kazandırdığından bahsediliyor. Lippmann kamusal alanın psikolojisini çözmüş bir araştırmacı. Kitle psikolojisi ve halkla ilişkilere yön vermiş de diyebilirim. Public Opinion’da da açıkça söylemese de servis edilen yayınların, görüntülerin doğruyu söylerken de kamuyu manipüle edebileceğini gösteriyor. Bu kadar eski tarihli bir kitabın beni bu denli şaşırtacağını düşünmezdim. Benzer alanlarda çalışan insanların özellikle faydalanacağını düşünüyorum. Karşıt görüş geliştirmeyeceğim. Lippmann bilimsel bir çalışma olarak mesafeli bir yerden anlatıyor bunları. Hemen her görüşü etkileyecek bir adam. Üniversitelerde unutulmuş bir figür olmasını ilginç buluyorum öte yandan. Neredeyse edebiyata daha yakın metinleri olan Sennett, Bauman gibi araştırmacılardansa Lippmann’ı pratik olarak daha yararlı buldum.
August 27, 2018
Nobody on Earth is omniscient and to make sense of the sea of info that surrounds us all all we make use of what Lippmann calls 'stereotypes,' preconceptions of ideas that help us fill in the gaps between the points of information we're exposed to. People carry different stereotypes with them and the same people can look at the exact same evidence and come to different conclusions, not to say that there aren't cases where the shared stereotypes of society can lead to near unanimous agreement.
I get this point of view and I agree with it, although I began to anticipate Lippmann's embrace of relativism that never actually happens. There's never any outright declaration that because people can have differing interpretations of the facts we ought to embrace nihilism, relativism, pyrrhonism, or even pragmatism, though William James is cited a lot, because of course, his work in psychology. Given what he writes about, Lippmann seems to believe that there is an objective world out there, the information of which can be easily manipulated and affect the course of politics, which he seems to be rather concerned about.
He dismisses the idea of a coherent public opinion. Society cannot be viewed as any sort of being, and to personify it is misleading. Instead of you have a mass of individual opinions, vastly differing, easily manipulated and some of them manage to filter up through the mechanisms of democracy and affect public policy. A lot of decisions however involve factors that can disregard what the public believes, especially in an emergency. It's a very cynical view of democracy and and honest one. I disagree with Rousseau on so much but one of the things I believe he got right is that democracy only works in small countries, I believe for this very reason. Public opinion is less of an incoherent mess in such examples, and people are at least closer to the very small number of leaders actually involved in decisions.
The theme of stereotypes and the very limited points of contact we actually have with our world of information continues with more historical and political examples. Sometimes I felt like I was reading a book about World War One: The French government figures out the best way to continue lying to the public, the U.S. mobilizes it's propaganda apparatus after joining the war, US senators debate on military action after a garbled report about Americans troops in Italy reaches congress. He also writes about the press and how in a world of near infinite events, a few of them manage to find themselves into our publications as 'news'.
The book ends with a remedy for the ills that Lippman identifies and it's a very straightforward and unsurprising call for critical thinking. [The teacher can instruct his students] for example, to look in his newspaper for the place where the dispatch was filed, for the name of the correspondent, the name of the press service, the authority given for the statement, the circumstances under which the statement was secured...to ask himself whether the reporter saw what he describes, and to remember how that reporter described other events in the past. He can teach him the character of censorship, of the idea of privacy, and furnish him with knowledge of past propaganda. He can... make him aware of the stereotype, and can educate a habit of introspection about the imagery evoked by printed words. He can... produce a life-long realization of the way codes impose a special pattern upon the imagination. He can teach men to catch themselves making allegories, dramatizing relations, and personifying abstractions. He can show the pupil how he identifies himself with these allegories, how he becomes interested, and how he selects the attitude, heroic, romantic, economic which he adopts while holding a particular opinion.
The rating might seem a little low. I really liked the psychology aspects of the book, but many of the politics sections seemed to take a life of their own. They weren't necessarily boring. I like reading about politics, but I felt they wandered to far from the point, and even could've fit into their own book.
I get this point of view and I agree with it, although I began to anticipate Lippmann's embrace of relativism that never actually happens. There's never any outright declaration that because people can have differing interpretations of the facts we ought to embrace nihilism, relativism, pyrrhonism, or even pragmatism, though William James is cited a lot, because of course, his work in psychology. Given what he writes about, Lippmann seems to believe that there is an objective world out there, the information of which can be easily manipulated and affect the course of politics, which he seems to be rather concerned about.
He dismisses the idea of a coherent public opinion. Society cannot be viewed as any sort of being, and to personify it is misleading. Instead of you have a mass of individual opinions, vastly differing, easily manipulated and some of them manage to filter up through the mechanisms of democracy and affect public policy. A lot of decisions however involve factors that can disregard what the public believes, especially in an emergency. It's a very cynical view of democracy and and honest one. I disagree with Rousseau on so much but one of the things I believe he got right is that democracy only works in small countries, I believe for this very reason. Public opinion is less of an incoherent mess in such examples, and people are at least closer to the very small number of leaders actually involved in decisions.
The theme of stereotypes and the very limited points of contact we actually have with our world of information continues with more historical and political examples. Sometimes I felt like I was reading a book about World War One: The French government figures out the best way to continue lying to the public, the U.S. mobilizes it's propaganda apparatus after joining the war, US senators debate on military action after a garbled report about Americans troops in Italy reaches congress. He also writes about the press and how in a world of near infinite events, a few of them manage to find themselves into our publications as 'news'.
The book ends with a remedy for the ills that Lippman identifies and it's a very straightforward and unsurprising call for critical thinking. [The teacher can instruct his students] for example, to look in his newspaper for the place where the dispatch was filed, for the name of the correspondent, the name of the press service, the authority given for the statement, the circumstances under which the statement was secured...to ask himself whether the reporter saw what he describes, and to remember how that reporter described other events in the past. He can teach him the character of censorship, of the idea of privacy, and furnish him with knowledge of past propaganda. He can... make him aware of the stereotype, and can educate a habit of introspection about the imagery evoked by printed words. He can... produce a life-long realization of the way codes impose a special pattern upon the imagination. He can teach men to catch themselves making allegories, dramatizing relations, and personifying abstractions. He can show the pupil how he identifies himself with these allegories, how he becomes interested, and how he selects the attitude, heroic, romantic, economic which he adopts while holding a particular opinion.
The rating might seem a little low. I really liked the psychology aspects of the book, but many of the politics sections seemed to take a life of their own. They weren't necessarily boring. I like reading about politics, but I felt they wandered to far from the point, and even could've fit into their own book.
October 9, 2008
I really liked this book. Although it was written more than 80 years ago I think that it addresses a very current issue.
This book begins with a discussion of social psychology. It explains how people see through different paradigms.
Then he builds from this a political theory. He denies "democracy" and discusses the federalist government, but I found that these designations are not as understandable in the modern vernacular. You have to pay close attention to system in which he is defining these terms.
The theory assumes a lack of capacity in people that is kind of upsetting, but it is easily understandable in the context of the civil and first world war that the school of realist democracy was reacting to.
Lippmann suggests a solution based in the use of insular experts helping to inform and direct government. He believes that these experts should enlighten the public, but he says that the public can only be involved in a direct democracy in small agrarian societies such as those Thomas Jefferson promoted.
There is also an interesting discussion of history in a more "present tense". He sites H.G. Wells history of the world which is a book that has fallen greatly out of use since a lot of science has changed since it was written. He also talks a lot about the founding fathers and fights in policy between Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington and Madison. These are contexts that tend to get blurred in more modern overviews of history, but are obviously very clear and important for Lippmann.
This book begins with a discussion of social psychology. It explains how people see through different paradigms.
Then he builds from this a political theory. He denies "democracy" and discusses the federalist government, but I found that these designations are not as understandable in the modern vernacular. You have to pay close attention to system in which he is defining these terms.
The theory assumes a lack of capacity in people that is kind of upsetting, but it is easily understandable in the context of the civil and first world war that the school of realist democracy was reacting to.
Lippmann suggests a solution based in the use of insular experts helping to inform and direct government. He believes that these experts should enlighten the public, but he says that the public can only be involved in a direct democracy in small agrarian societies such as those Thomas Jefferson promoted.
There is also an interesting discussion of history in a more "present tense". He sites H.G. Wells history of the world which is a book that has fallen greatly out of use since a lot of science has changed since it was written. He also talks a lot about the founding fathers and fights in policy between Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington and Madison. These are contexts that tend to get blurred in more modern overviews of history, but are obviously very clear and important for Lippmann.
March 10, 2011
Whatever else one may think of this classic, it is written to take one's breath away. The images of Lippmann's prose alone--e.g. the Platonic, iconic "pictures in the mind," itself an almost mandatory talking point for those who pass through liberal arts education in America--guarantee that this book will repay reading and rereading. As for those who dismiss or belittle Lippmann as an elitist ready to cede political power to the expertise of the few, I am not convinced. Yes, he wrote in favor of those who might, as Chomsky later caught him, willfully "manufacture consent." Surely, not a happy image in an era sandwiched between the propaganda of two world wars. But still, I am not convinced that Lippmann's views are--or ever were--principally incompatible with a healthy public and a democratic state. It appears, recent historians have shown, that most of the legendary debate posited between Lippmann and John Dewey was fabricated well after the 1920s and 1930s. (Most of it, for understandable reasons, by the ever-incandescent James W. Carey in the 1980s.) Considering the spread of volunteer communities that leverage their own self-policed, peer-reviewed expertise for the benefit of the many in scalable, collaborative ways, online and off, it seems that this work finds fresh relevance in a digital era. It's no longer Dewey's democracy versus Lippmann's experts; it's time for Deweyan democrats to reacquaint themselves with Lippmann, and Public Opinion makes a great meeting point.
April 5, 2021
Too many examples, anecdotes and questions, and not enough answers and explanation.
While reading the book, I was often clueless on what the main point of the chapter/paragraph was.
While reading the book, I was often clueless on what the main point of the chapter/paragraph was.
February 2, 2021
One of the most thought-provoking reads of my entire life. Deeply insightful and full of stunning truths. Brilliant explanation of the struggles defined by democratic nations and very relevant to current political affairs.
June 25, 2019
I agreed with many of his main points on stereotyping, democracy, propaganda, and the inability for a potential voter to actually understand beyond their personal realm. But, man-o-man, this is not what I would call a "fun" read. Lots of 1920s news references and lots of rambling prose. I know I'm not the target audience here, but geez liven it up Walter.
October 10, 2024
3.5 stars
Main quotes:
- “For the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture.”
- “We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them. And those preconceptions, unless education has made us acutely aware, govern deeply the whole process of perception.”
- “Great men, even during their lifetime, are usually known to the public only through a fictitious personality.”
Notes:
- In 1922 Walter Lippmann was already trying to grapple with the effects that modern technology as well as the changing and expanding socio-political landscape were having on people.
- Rather than directly experiencing the world, we instead react to a pseudo-environment that is populated by media, culture and past experiences that can, in fact, distort reality.
- The truth is that every community tends to establish some rules about what is acceptable to express. In fact, you can say that it's a natural outcome of the human tendency to use censorship to avoid uncomfortable truths and protect personal privacy. But this self-censorship leads to a selective presentation of facts in which individuals and groups choose what information to share or withhold based on their interests.
- Most people haven't traveled very far from home and they're used to talking to people of a similar cultural background, so they get their information about distant events and issues from second-hand sources, whether it's news reports, rumors, or the opinions of others. This indirect contact is the information that comes to form their own views and opinions, and it often leads to distorted or incomplete perceptions. Other factors are time and attention, and the lack thereof. Even when information is available, individuals have limited time and cognitive resources to process it.
- The need to fit information into short, digestible pieces means that much of the nuance and context are lost, contributing to a superficial understanding of issues.
- Since reality is full of grey areas and complexities, individuals rely on these simplified images to navigate life. (stereotypes)
Public Opinion
Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion, Uncover the Hidden Forces Shaping Public Perception It can be tricky to imagine what life was like without the kind of mass media that surrounds us today. Never mind the internet, what about the times before television, radio or international newspapers? In 1922 Walter Lippmann was already trying to grapple with the effects that modern technology as well as the changing and expanding socio-political landscape were having on people. In his introduction he uses a story of English, French and German people living harmoniously on an island in 1914, unaware that war among their respective nations has broken out.
Cut off from radio and newspapers they had no one to tell them that their neighbours were supposed to be their enemies. He uses this as an example of how, unlike the people on the island, we live in a pseudo-environment. Rather than directly experiencing the world, we instead react to a pseudo-environment that is populated by media, culture and past experiences that can, in fact, distort reality. If this all sounds rather heady, well, it kind of is. But fear not, in the sections ahead we'll break down Lippmann's ideas and explain why this hundred year old book is still highly relevant today.
Barriers to Reality Let's start by acknowledging that we're all individuals and yet we're all part of a larger society that involves government, corporations and mass media. This sounds simple enough and yet these basic facts come with a whole host of factors that shape how we perceive and understand the external world. Let's start by looking at some of the various barriers we put in place that prevent individuals from accurately grasping the complexities of reality. Keep in mind that what we'll be looking at is how these barriers also play a role in shaping public opinion about important topics that affect everyone.
One of the more obvious barriers is censorship. The truth is that every community tends to establish some rules about what is acceptable to express. In fact, you can say that it's a natural outcome of the human tendency to use censorship to avoid uncomfortable truths and protect personal privacy. But this self-censorship leads to a selective presentation of facts in which individuals and groups choose what information to share or withhold based on their interests. The author uses the example of war censorship in which governments restrict certain information to maintain morale. Individuals also engage in similar practices in their daily lives, filtering out information that challenges their worldview.
But those worldviews can also be limited by a lack of direct contact with what's going on outside their immediate experience. This, too, can affect people's understanding of reality. Most people haven't traveled very far from home and they're used to talking to people of a similar cultural background, so they get their information about distant events and issues from second-hand sources, whether it's news reports, rumors, or the opinions of others. This indirect contact is the information that comes to form their own views and opinions, and it often leads to distorted or incomplete perceptions. Other factors are time and attention, and the lack thereof. Even when information is available, individuals have limited time and cognitive resources to process it.
This leads to a reliance on shortcuts that can oversimplify complex realities. This is also what leads people to gravitate towards stereotypes. Even newspapers must condense lengthy events into brief articles that capture readers' attention. The need to fit information into short, digestible pieces means that much of the nuance and context are lost, contributing to a superficial understanding of issues.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. In the sections ahead, we'll look closer at how our distorted worldview can lead to harmful public opinions, and the different ways in which this can be exploited. The Shortcut of Stereotypes In the previous section, we briefly mentioned how incomplete or distorted information can lead to people latching on to stereotypes and believing they're true.
This was a big concern in the author's time, and it continues to be relevant today. Stereotypes are essentially mental shortcuts or simplified images that people use to make sense of the world. In some ways, they can be useful. Since reality is full of grey areas and complexities, individuals rely on these simplified images to navigate life.
They can act as a framework through which people interpret new information, helping them quickly categorise and respond to their environments. But they can also be harmful. People from different cultures often have stereotyped views of each other, such as seeing foreigners as either exotic or threatening based on their limited experience and media portrayals. While stereotypes help manage complexity, they can also distort reality by oversimplifying and generalising diverse groups or situations. - this defensive use of stereotypes can lead to resistance to change and a reluctance to challenge one's own beliefs.
- the dynamic between leaders and followers can also result in a passive public that relies on the interpretations of a few, rather than engaging directly with the issues.
- When communities are self-contained and insulated, their members are less exposed to diverse viewpoints and are more likely to cling to their own biases and stereotypes. Rural communities may have limited exposure to urban issues and vice versa, all of which results in a skewed understanding of democratic principles as individuals lack awareness of broader societal issues and alternative perspectives.
- The nature of news is such that it can both inform and mislead, depending on how it is framed and presented. (obviously)
Main quotes:
- “For the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture.”
- “We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them. And those preconceptions, unless education has made us acutely aware, govern deeply the whole process of perception.”
- “Great men, even during their lifetime, are usually known to the public only through a fictitious personality.”
Notes:
- In 1922 Walter Lippmann was already trying to grapple with the effects that modern technology as well as the changing and expanding socio-political landscape were having on people.
- Rather than directly experiencing the world, we instead react to a pseudo-environment that is populated by media, culture and past experiences that can, in fact, distort reality.
- The truth is that every community tends to establish some rules about what is acceptable to express. In fact, you can say that it's a natural outcome of the human tendency to use censorship to avoid uncomfortable truths and protect personal privacy. But this self-censorship leads to a selective presentation of facts in which individuals and groups choose what information to share or withhold based on their interests.
- Most people haven't traveled very far from home and they're used to talking to people of a similar cultural background, so they get their information about distant events and issues from second-hand sources, whether it's news reports, rumors, or the opinions of others. This indirect contact is the information that comes to form their own views and opinions, and it often leads to distorted or incomplete perceptions. Other factors are time and attention, and the lack thereof. Even when information is available, individuals have limited time and cognitive resources to process it.
- The need to fit information into short, digestible pieces means that much of the nuance and context are lost, contributing to a superficial understanding of issues.
- Since reality is full of grey areas and complexities, individuals rely on these simplified images to navigate life. (stereotypes)
Public Opinion
Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion, Uncover the Hidden Forces Shaping Public Perception It can be tricky to imagine what life was like without the kind of mass media that surrounds us today. Never mind the internet, what about the times before television, radio or international newspapers? In 1922 Walter Lippmann was already trying to grapple with the effects that modern technology as well as the changing and expanding socio-political landscape were having on people. In his introduction he uses a story of English, French and German people living harmoniously on an island in 1914, unaware that war among their respective nations has broken out.
Cut off from radio and newspapers they had no one to tell them that their neighbours were supposed to be their enemies. He uses this as an example of how, unlike the people on the island, we live in a pseudo-environment. Rather than directly experiencing the world, we instead react to a pseudo-environment that is populated by media, culture and past experiences that can, in fact, distort reality. If this all sounds rather heady, well, it kind of is. But fear not, in the sections ahead we'll break down Lippmann's ideas and explain why this hundred year old book is still highly relevant today.
Barriers to Reality Let's start by acknowledging that we're all individuals and yet we're all part of a larger society that involves government, corporations and mass media. This sounds simple enough and yet these basic facts come with a whole host of factors that shape how we perceive and understand the external world. Let's start by looking at some of the various barriers we put in place that prevent individuals from accurately grasping the complexities of reality. Keep in mind that what we'll be looking at is how these barriers also play a role in shaping public opinion about important topics that affect everyone.
One of the more obvious barriers is censorship. The truth is that every community tends to establish some rules about what is acceptable to express. In fact, you can say that it's a natural outcome of the human tendency to use censorship to avoid uncomfortable truths and protect personal privacy. But this self-censorship leads to a selective presentation of facts in which individuals and groups choose what information to share or withhold based on their interests. The author uses the example of war censorship in which governments restrict certain information to maintain morale. Individuals also engage in similar practices in their daily lives, filtering out information that challenges their worldview.
But those worldviews can also be limited by a lack of direct contact with what's going on outside their immediate experience. This, too, can affect people's understanding of reality. Most people haven't traveled very far from home and they're used to talking to people of a similar cultural background, so they get their information about distant events and issues from second-hand sources, whether it's news reports, rumors, or the opinions of others. This indirect contact is the information that comes to form their own views and opinions, and it often leads to distorted or incomplete perceptions. Other factors are time and attention, and the lack thereof. Even when information is available, individuals have limited time and cognitive resources to process it.
This leads to a reliance on shortcuts that can oversimplify complex realities. This is also what leads people to gravitate towards stereotypes. Even newspapers must condense lengthy events into brief articles that capture readers' attention. The need to fit information into short, digestible pieces means that much of the nuance and context are lost, contributing to a superficial understanding of issues.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. In the sections ahead, we'll look closer at how our distorted worldview can lead to harmful public opinions, and the different ways in which this can be exploited. The Shortcut of Stereotypes In the previous section, we briefly mentioned how incomplete or distorted information can lead to people latching on to stereotypes and believing they're true.
This was a big concern in the author's time, and it continues to be relevant today. Stereotypes are essentially mental shortcuts or simplified images that people use to make sense of the world. In some ways, they can be useful. Since reality is full of grey areas and complexities, individuals rely on these simplified images to navigate life.
They can act as a framework through which people interpret new information, helping them quickly categorise and respond to their environments. But they can also be harmful. People from different cultures often have stereotyped views of each other, such as seeing foreigners as either exotic or threatening based on their limited experience and media portrayals. While stereotypes help manage complexity, they can also distort reality by oversimplifying and generalising diverse groups or situations. - this defensive use of stereotypes can lead to resistance to change and a reluctance to challenge one's own beliefs.
- the dynamic between leaders and followers can also result in a passive public that relies on the interpretations of a few, rather than engaging directly with the issues.
- When communities are self-contained and insulated, their members are less exposed to diverse viewpoints and are more likely to cling to their own biases and stereotypes. Rural communities may have limited exposure to urban issues and vice versa, all of which results in a skewed understanding of democratic principles as individuals lack awareness of broader societal issues and alternative perspectives.
- The nature of news is such that it can both inform and mislead, depending on how it is framed and presented. (obviously)
August 16, 2016
There is a lot of information in this book. Indeed, I had a respectful amount of annotation from my reading; however, I must return to my notes to retain what I read. If I were to rate this book on the material, the theories, concepts and conclusions, I would rate it as a five. However, it requires so much work to get through the intellectual psycho-babble of much of his writing it is just not worth the effort for the average person. For this reason, I rated it a three.
It seemed to me that his writing was more his effort to display his erudition than to communicate with his readers. I believe that an author should write so that a bond is created with the readers in such a way that they can readily understand what the author is trying to communicate. In this book, however, Mr. Lippman virtually shouts, "Look at me! Look how erudite I am."
It seemed to me that his writing was more his effort to display his erudition than to communicate with his readers. I believe that an author should write so that a bond is created with the readers in such a way that they can readily understand what the author is trying to communicate. In this book, however, Mr. Lippman virtually shouts, "Look at me! Look how erudite I am."
December 3, 2021
Public opinion was published in 1997 and written by Walter Lappmann. It discusses the nature of human information and communication, the last section is about the news, earlier he talks about censorship and privacy along with a section Titled The Enlisting of Interest which I found to be very interesting and the best part of the book. There is also a discussion of symbolism and what it means of which I also found interesting. If there is one criticism of the book is that the last section is a bit uninteresting and dry compared to the entirety of the book which was ultimately hard to put down.
If you are interested in journalism and art this is a must read.
If you are interested in journalism and art this is a must read.
July 14, 2014
So overwrought with examples and anecdotes very little concrete information bleeds through. Man, what a blowhard.
October 7, 2022
Walter Lippman calls democracy as thought of in America a myth. In this careful examination of the subject he provides factual evidence for his thinking that I believe is irrefutable.
The democracy that we believe ours to be would only be possible in a small community where everyone is directly and daily in contact with the local environment and the problems that must be dealt with, therefor having the necessary knowledge of all that needs to be known to decide the proper course of action.
Each member of the small community would be, certainly could be, omni-competent, able to think reasonably about the world they know thereby able to have an informed opinion to put to use deciding public issues in group assembly.
In a democracy that rules over a continental area and contains a third of a billion people, none of what I just described is possible. No citizen can take in all of the facts, all of the situations and technicalities that must be considered in order to build an informed opinion on an issue of national or even statewide importance. We all know about information overload and can avoid it only by ignoring a large majority of what goes on each day. The "news" is almost entirely a headline service that in itself cannot help but ignore a multitude of events even in a large city.
Lippman goes into detail about how we form stereotypes, necessary in order to avoid paralysis in our thinking. We form opinions based on these stereotypes, not on the particulars of a situation the details of which we cannot know. We only have so many hours in a day and we have a variety of interests among which staying informed in order to vote intelligently could easily take every waking minute and demand more.
We carry around our stereotypes and have prejudices for each one driven by our emotions, not reason. Our egos are defensive and resist challenges to stereotype. If we see something that confirms a stereotype we are quick to feel satisfaction in the confirmation because, yes, we are right, while contradictory evidence is easily ignored leaving the stereotype intact. While it is possible to escape this easy auto-pilot thinking, it takes effort to remain open minded and and in the majority of cases we must admit to ourselves that we simply don't know enough or anything about this or that. This admission of ignorance is truthful and courageous, but it is not comforting because it admits we cannot control our world.
Lippman, a journalist, demonstrates how impossible it is for the newspapers to inform public opinion rather than pander to it. The press wants to interest the reader, to avoid boring him and most certainly not to lose him. Stories conform to stereotypes, do not go into depth, do not offend advertisers or important people who may be sources of news.
This is a bleak picture and reading this book of unvarnished truth makes one realize why the public is uninformed and interested in entertainment and sports over public affairs, local or national. Lippman's suggestion is that those who know the subject research (without lobby influence) problems and come up with alternatives to address them by government action. Then leadership, which is carefully separated from and has no influence over the researchers, makes a decision to act from the choices the researchers have provided. The public at the voting booth decides only if the leaders have done well enough to deserve return to office.
Rejecting the old idea that the voice of people is the voice of god and recognizing the fact that the public is ill informed, ridden by stereotypical thinking, unqualified to judge issues on the facts of the case and prone to emotional voting over personal characteristics of candidates rather than the issues, Lippman hopes to have the democracy we have function in accord with reality rather than myth.
Though this book was written 100 years ago, I conclude with a paragraph from the book, as I ask if you don't find a resonance with American life today...
"The private citizen today has come to feel rather like a deaf spectator in the back row, who ought to keep his mind on the mystery off there, but cannot quite manage to keep awake. He knows he is somehow affected by what is going on. Rules and regulations continually, taxes annually and wars occasionally remind him that he is being swept along by great drifts of circumstance. Yet these public affairs are in no convincing way his affairs. They are for the most part invisible. They are managed, if they are managed at all, at distant centers, from behind the scenes, by unnamed powers. As a private person he does not know for certain what is going on, or who is doing it, or where he is being carried. No newspaper reports his environment so that he can grasp it; no school has taught him how to imagine it; his ideals, often, do not fit it; listening to speeches, uttering opinions and voting do not, he finds, enable him to govern it. He lives in a world which he cannot see, does not understand and is unable to direct."
The democracy that we believe ours to be would only be possible in a small community where everyone is directly and daily in contact with the local environment and the problems that must be dealt with, therefor having the necessary knowledge of all that needs to be known to decide the proper course of action.
Each member of the small community would be, certainly could be, omni-competent, able to think reasonably about the world they know thereby able to have an informed opinion to put to use deciding public issues in group assembly.
In a democracy that rules over a continental area and contains a third of a billion people, none of what I just described is possible. No citizen can take in all of the facts, all of the situations and technicalities that must be considered in order to build an informed opinion on an issue of national or even statewide importance. We all know about information overload and can avoid it only by ignoring a large majority of what goes on each day. The "news" is almost entirely a headline service that in itself cannot help but ignore a multitude of events even in a large city.
Lippman goes into detail about how we form stereotypes, necessary in order to avoid paralysis in our thinking. We form opinions based on these stereotypes, not on the particulars of a situation the details of which we cannot know. We only have so many hours in a day and we have a variety of interests among which staying informed in order to vote intelligently could easily take every waking minute and demand more.
We carry around our stereotypes and have prejudices for each one driven by our emotions, not reason. Our egos are defensive and resist challenges to stereotype. If we see something that confirms a stereotype we are quick to feel satisfaction in the confirmation because, yes, we are right, while contradictory evidence is easily ignored leaving the stereotype intact. While it is possible to escape this easy auto-pilot thinking, it takes effort to remain open minded and and in the majority of cases we must admit to ourselves that we simply don't know enough or anything about this or that. This admission of ignorance is truthful and courageous, but it is not comforting because it admits we cannot control our world.
Lippman, a journalist, demonstrates how impossible it is for the newspapers to inform public opinion rather than pander to it. The press wants to interest the reader, to avoid boring him and most certainly not to lose him. Stories conform to stereotypes, do not go into depth, do not offend advertisers or important people who may be sources of news.
This is a bleak picture and reading this book of unvarnished truth makes one realize why the public is uninformed and interested in entertainment and sports over public affairs, local or national. Lippman's suggestion is that those who know the subject research (without lobby influence) problems and come up with alternatives to address them by government action. Then leadership, which is carefully separated from and has no influence over the researchers, makes a decision to act from the choices the researchers have provided. The public at the voting booth decides only if the leaders have done well enough to deserve return to office.
Rejecting the old idea that the voice of people is the voice of god and recognizing the fact that the public is ill informed, ridden by stereotypical thinking, unqualified to judge issues on the facts of the case and prone to emotional voting over personal characteristics of candidates rather than the issues, Lippman hopes to have the democracy we have function in accord with reality rather than myth.
Though this book was written 100 years ago, I conclude with a paragraph from the book, as I ask if you don't find a resonance with American life today...
"The private citizen today has come to feel rather like a deaf spectator in the back row, who ought to keep his mind on the mystery off there, but cannot quite manage to keep awake. He knows he is somehow affected by what is going on. Rules and regulations continually, taxes annually and wars occasionally remind him that he is being swept along by great drifts of circumstance. Yet these public affairs are in no convincing way his affairs. They are for the most part invisible. They are managed, if they are managed at all, at distant centers, from behind the scenes, by unnamed powers. As a private person he does not know for certain what is going on, or who is doing it, or where he is being carried. No newspaper reports his environment so that he can grasp it; no school has taught him how to imagine it; his ideals, often, do not fit it; listening to speeches, uttering opinions and voting do not, he finds, enable him to govern it. He lives in a world which he cannot see, does not understand and is unable to direct."
August 18, 2024
Lippmann's other major book, A PREFACE TO MORALS, is on the Modern Library Top 100 Nonfiction works. So I am fated to write about Lippmann at length. To be honest, A PREFACE TO MORALS has been bugging the shit out of me because it is so falsely assumptive about what most Americans strive for. But this book, PUBLIC OPINION, is clearly the more thoughtful of the two. This volume is loaded with uncomfortable but necessary iconoclastic truths that are still very much in place today. How much of our view of the world is manufactured by the people in power? Well, quite a bit of it -- even those of us who question everything are susceptible to the occasional propagandist bromide. Hell, we're seeing this right now in the way that smug neoliberals, hopped up on Kamala momentum, are condemning progressive types for being critical of her half-cocked stance on Israel. We're seeing this in the way that AIPAC is deliberately interfering in our democratic process by forcing Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, and the Oregon progressives out of office with big money and big lies. Is the Constitution a truly democratic instrument? Or have we all cosigned onto the marketing idea that it is because Jefferson told us to read it this way -- even though the Framers had altogether different ideas? The irony about American life is that the goal ostensibly seems to be to have an educated public, that we can cultivate our own independent opinion from reading the news. But Lippmann makes a very strong and necessary case for the woeful deficiencies of this process, which, in our age of declining journalism standards and mass layoffs in media, are even worse. So, yeah, you might want to read this indispensable volume to remind your mind and soul why it's important -- and indeed patriotic -- to be honest, pragmatic, and antiauthoritarian.
October 10, 2024
Summary:
The people's views are often shaped by media and external sources, rather than direct experiences. The idea of the pseudo-environment suggests that the world we perceive is not the real world, but a constructed version influenced by media, corporations, governments and propaganda. This constructed reality can lead to misconceptions and misinformation. Relying on second-hand sources for our understanding of other cultures and world events also plays a big role in shaping public opinion by creating stereotypes and distorting reality. Without a better understanding of the big picture, self-interests can take over. The impact of this distorted perception is distressing, as it has a negative effect on democracy, since an informed citizenry is crucial for a healthy democratic society. Democracy is also in danger of being controlled by leaders and influential powers who simplify complex issues into yes or no questions, thereby limiting the influence of the masses. Democracy should be about the betterment of the many, not the few. The real challenge lies in whether or not we'll ever be able to manage public opinion to promote reform and positive change.
The people's views are often shaped by media and external sources, rather than direct experiences. The idea of the pseudo-environment suggests that the world we perceive is not the real world, but a constructed version influenced by media, corporations, governments and propaganda. This constructed reality can lead to misconceptions and misinformation. Relying on second-hand sources for our understanding of other cultures and world events also plays a big role in shaping public opinion by creating stereotypes and distorting reality. Without a better understanding of the big picture, self-interests can take over. The impact of this distorted perception is distressing, as it has a negative effect on democracy, since an informed citizenry is crucial for a healthy democratic society. Democracy is also in danger of being controlled by leaders and influential powers who simplify complex issues into yes or no questions, thereby limiting the influence of the masses. Democracy should be about the betterment of the many, not the few. The real challenge lies in whether or not we'll ever be able to manage public opinion to promote reform and positive change.
February 17, 2021
While Lippmann’s final solution is questionable (even his greatest fans agree) this book is still of the most incisive critiques of democracy to date. With an insight into human psychology reminiscent of James, Lippmann spends the majority of the text laying out various hurdles that democracies face, both in relation to the media but also as a result of the human condition. Lippmann’s solution (only covered in the final chapter of the book) leaves much to be desired, but his diagnosis is on point. Neither Lippmann nor Dewey, who famously grappled with these problems and came to differing conclusions, has satisfactorily addressed the issues raised in Public Opinion. But they are issues we still struggle with today. Any thinker that is committed to the project of making democracy work must address these fundamental issues. To that end, I think that anyone interested in democracy, sociology, American politics, and how we interact with the media should read this book.
Read
November 4, 2022"'Public Opinion,' at 100, has never been more relevant. Lippmann’s study of the human mind and the body politic, produced in the aftermath of World War I, analyzes the impact of a new mass-media system—on government, on news, on 'the pictures in our heads.' It applies the lessons of psychology, then a nascent field, to electoral politics. It warns of how easily propaganda, that evasive weapon of war, can become banal ... 'Public Opinion' saturates political discourse so completely that its insights, today, might seem obvious. In truth, they are ominous. Democracy is the work of minds made manifest; how will it proceed when 'the pictures in our heads' are blurred by lies?" — Megan Garber
https://www.theatlantic.com/books/arc...
https://www.theatlantic.com/books/arc...
January 21, 2020
O primeiro capítulo desse livro ("The image in our heads") é simplesmente fantástico. Quando li pensei "Cara, esse vai ser um dos melhores livros que li na vida", mas a qualidade e os insights caíram muito para mim depois disso e por fim desisti de terminar. Certamente vale a leitura, Lippman foi um grande intelectual e quando leio ele tenho a sensação de estar lendo Richard Hofstadter, com um pouco menos brilho. No entanto, para além do capítulo 1, o livro não trouxe discussões que estou interessado nesse momento.
June 26, 2017
Για την εποχή που γράφτηκε θα πρέπει να ήταν πολύ προοδευτικό.
Ωστόσο για σήμερα & για όσα ανεφέρει, είναι σχετικά ξεπερασμένο.
Έχει ωραία κειμενάκια όμως για μαθητές Λυκείου που θέλουν να τα πάνε καλύτερα στο μάθημα της Έκθεσης..
Ωστόσο για σήμερα & για όσα ανεφέρει, είναι σχετικά ξεπερασμένο.
Έχει ωραία κειμενάκια όμως για μαθητές Λυκείου που θέλουν να τα πάνε καλύτερα στο μάθημα της Έκθεσης..
March 5, 2024
Read this for a class... Really hope I pass this exam.
March 15, 2025
i think everyone should read this book.
September 27, 2019
WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT?
- [Published in 1922]...is a critical assessment of functional democratic government, especially of the irrational and often self-serving social perceptions that influence individual behavior and prevent optimal societal cohesion.
WHO IS THE AUTHOR?
- Walter Lippmann was an American writer, reporter, and political commentator famous for being among the first to introduce the term ‘’stereotype’ in the modern psychological meaning.
PLATO’S ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE (THIS IS A KEY CONCEPT IN THE BOOK)
- Short, animated explanation: https://youtu.be/1RWOpQXTltA
- whatever we believe to be a true picture, we treat as if it were the environment itself.
IMAGES OF THINGS BEYOND OUR PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
- The only feeling that anyone can have about an event he does not experience is the feeling aroused by his mental image of that event. That is why until we know what others think they know, we cannot truly understand their acts.
PICTURES, RESPONSES, AND ACTION
- ...the triangular relationship between the scene of action, the human picture of that scene, and the human response to that picture working itself out upon the scene of action.
ARE WE SEEING THE SAME THING?!
- More accurately, they live in the same world, but they think and feel in different ones.
SINCE WE HAVE DIFFERENT EXPERIENCES, WE ACT DIFFERENTLY
- To expect that all men for all time will go on thinking different things, and yet doing the same things, is a doubtful speculation.
WHAT IS PROPAGANDA?
- But what is propaganda, if not the effort to alter the picture to which men respond, to substitute one social pattern for another?
TRENCH WARFARE DID NOT FIT INTO THE MENTAL PICTURE OF CITIZENS, SO THE IMAGE OF WHAT WAS CONSIDERED SUCCESSFUL WAS CHANGED
- By putting the dead Germans in the focus of the picture, and by omitting to mention the French dead, a very special view of the battle was built up. It was a view designed to neutralize the effects of German territorial advances and the impression of power which the persistence of the offensive was making.
- For the public, accustomed to the idea that war consists of great strategic movements, flank attacks, encirclements, and dramatic surrenders, had gradually to forget that picture in favor of the terrible idea that by matching lives the war would be won...the General Staff substituted a view of the facts that comported with this strategy.
PROPAGANDA WORKS WHEN YOU CONTROL THE NARRATIVE
- Without some form of censorship, propaganda in the strict sense of the word is impossible. In order to conduct a propaganda there must be some barrier between the public and the event. Access to the real environment must be limited, before anyone can create a pseudo-environment that he thinks wise or desirable.
“MO MONEY, MO PERSPECTIVE”
- The size of a man's income has considerable effect on his access to the world beyond his neighborhood.
STEREOTYPES
- For the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture.
- Thus out of forty trained observers writing a responsible account of a scene that had just happened before their eyes, more than a majority saw a scene that had not taken place...They saw their stereotype of such a brawl.
STEREOTYPES COME FROM THE IMAGES WE HAVE IN OUR HEADS
- In untrained observation we pick recognizable signs out of the environment. The signs stand for ideas, and these ideas we fill out with our stock of images.
- Instead we notice a trait which marks a well known type, and fill in the rest of the picture by means of the stereotypes we carry about in our heads.
STEREOTYPES ARE POWERFUL
- The stereotypes are, therefore, highly charged with the feelings that are attached to them.
REINFORCING WHAT WE ALREADY THOUGHT WE SAW
- If what we are looking at corresponds successfully with what we anticipated, the stereotype is reinforced for the future,
- For when a system of stereotypes is well fixed, our attention is called to those facts which support it, and diverted from those which contradict.
STEREOTYPES SAVE TIME AND MAKE THE WORLD LESS BEWILDERING
- the stereotype not only saves time in a busy life and is a defense of our position in society, but tends to preserve us from all the bewildering effect of trying to see the world steadily and see it whole.
WHAT IS PUBLIC OPINION
- ...a public opinion is primarily a moralized and codified version of the facts.
STEREOTYPES AND STRATEGISTS
- One generation of strategists, and perhaps two, had lived with that visual image as the starting point of all their calculations. For nearly four years every battle-map they saw had deepened the impression that this was the war. When affairs took a new turn, it was not easy to see them as they were then.
TIME IS A RELATIVE CONCEPT WHEN IT COMES TO PERCEPTIONS
- To the average Englishman, for example, the behavior of Cromwell, the corruption of the Act of Union, the Famine of 1847 are wrongs suffered by people long dead and done by actors long dead with whom no living person, Irish or English, has any real connection. But in the mind of a patriotic Irishman these same events are almost contemporary.
WE TEND TO HAVE AN ALL OR NOTHING VIEW
- In hating one thing violently, we readily associate with it as cause or effect most of the other things we hate or fear violently.
- Generally it all culminates in the fabrication of a system of all evil, and of another which is the system of all good.
- It is not enough to say that our side is more right than the enemy's, that our victory will help democracy more than his. One must insist that our victory will end war forever...Between omnipotence and impotence the pendulum swings.
STEREOTYPES OF GROUPS OF THINGS
- The deepest of all the stereotypes is the human stereotype which imputes human nature to inanimate or collective things.
REGAINING CONTROL OF YOUR SELF AFTER WAR
- It takes a long time to subdue so powerful an impulse once it goes loose. And therefore, when the war is over in fact, it takes time and struggle to regain self-control, and to deal with the problems of peace in civilian character.
REASON FOR FACTIONS AMONG PEOPLE MOST GENERALLY DUE TO DIFFERENCES IN DISTRIBUTION OF PROPERTY
- But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property." Madison's theory, therefore, is that the propensity to faction may be kindled by religious or political opinions, by leaders, but most commonly by the distribution of property.
- He does not say that their property and their opinions are cause and effect, but that differences of property are the causes of differences of opinion.
- That remedy assumes that if all property could be held in common, class differences would disappear. The assumption is false.
MASTER SYMBOLS (PICTURES PEOPLE HAVE IN THEIR HEADS) TO MASTER THE SITUATION
- If, for example, one man dislikes the League, another hates Mr. Wilson, and a third fears labor, you may be able to unite them if you can find some symbol which is the antithesis of what they all hate.
- A leader or an interest that can make itself master of current symbols is master of the current situation.
DO YOU WANT TO HAVE A WIDE APPEAL OR AN EMOTIONAL CONNECTION TO A GROUP (HARD TO GET BOTH)?
- As you ascend the hierarchy in order to include more and more factions you may for a time preserve the emotional connection though you lose the intellectual...you see far and wide, but you see very little.
- As the public appeal becomes more and more all things to all men, as the emotion is stirred while the meaning is dispersed, their very private meanings are given a universal application.
MESSAGE HAS TO BE SHARED BY THE RIGHT PERSON
- The words themselves do not crystallize random feeling. The words must be spoken by people who are strategically placed, and they must be spoken at the opportune moment. Otherwise they are mere wind.
- symbols are made congenial and important because they are introduced to us by congenial and important people.
INNER CIRCLE
- There is an inner circle, surrounded by concentric circles which fade out gradually into the disinterested or uninterested rank and file.
- But the essential fact remains that a small number of heads present a choice to a large group.
UPHEAVAL FOLLOWS THE FALL OF A SYMBOL
- The disintegration of a symbol, like Holy Russia, or the Iron Diaz, is always the beginning of a long upheaval.
- For the spectacle of a row on Olympus is diverting and destructive.
HMMM...THIS SEEMS FAMILIAR
- They do not like direct taxation. They do not like to pay as they go. They like long term debts. They like to have the voters believe that the foreigner will pay.
- Labor leaders have always preferred an increase of money wages to a decrease in prices. There has always been more popular interest in the profits of millionaires, which are visible but comparatively unimportant,
- But that belief will not make the roads prosperous, if the impact of those rates on farmers and shippers is such as to produce a commodity price beyond what the consumer can pay.
- Trusted men in a familiar role subscribing to the accepted symbols can go a very long way on their own initiative without explaining the substance of their programs.
LIVING IN AN ECHO CHAMBER
- These chosen people in their self-contained environment had all the facts before them. The environment was so familiar that one could take it for granted that men were talking about substantially the same things. The only real disagreements, therefore, would be in judgments about the same facts. There was no need to guarantee the sources of information. They were obvious, and equally accessible to all men.
- In the self-contained community one could assume, or at least did assume, a homogeneous code of morals. The only place, therefore, for differences of opinion was in the logical application of accepted standards to accepted facts.
SYSTEM OF CHECKS AND BALANCES A CHECK ON PUBLIC OPINION
- "In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men," wrote Madison, "the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself."
- In one very important sense, then, the doctrine of checks and balances was the remedy of the federalist leaders for the problem of public opinion.
CONGRESS FAILS TO ATTRACT TALENT
- Congress ceased to attract the eminent as it lost direct influence on the shaping of national policy.
DO WE REALLY NEED MR. SMITH TO GO TO WASHINGTON?
- There is no systematic, adequate, and authorized way for Congress to know what is going on in the world. The theory is that the best man of each district brings the best wisdom of his constituents to a central place, and that all these wisdoms combined are all the wisdom that Congress needs.
- the sum or a combination of local impressions is not a wide enough base for national policy, and no base at all for the control of foreign policy.
BRING IN SOME PROFESSIONALS
- the common interests very largely elude public opinion entirely, and can be managed only by a specialized class whose personal interests reach beyond the locality.
- The democratic fallacy has been its preoccupation with the origin of government [i.e voting] rather than with the processes and results.
- What determines the quality of civilization is the use made of power.
*** *** ***
FACTOIDS
- bunkum /ˈbəNGkəm / buncombe I. noun ‹informal› ‹dated› nonsense • they talk a lot of bunkum about their products.– origin mid 19th cent. (originally buncombe): named after Buncombe County in North Carolina, mentioned in an inconsequential speech made by its congressman solely to please his constituents (c. 1820).
- Kriegspiel= German word for ‘war game’
BONUS
- Video on Walter Lippmann, public opinion, and WWI propaganda (long-ish but is a good overview of the book’s contents): https://youtu.be/e-t77-Zr8po
HAHA
- [Damn, this book is old...] “...we maintain embassies in Tokio and Peking”
January 12, 2020
Why it’s taken me so long to discover this work is possibly a matter of pure serendipity. Lippmann was mentioned in an Aeon vid-article not long ago (https://aeon.co/videos/before-chomsky...), and that piqued my interest. It’s not about the screaming dude (sometimes, rarely, a chick—e.g., Emma Goldman, Kathleen Cleaver, Greta Thunberg) on the soapbox; it’s about the sheeple that spread the gospel of said screaming dude, and most importantly how prime media outlets parrot the screaming dude and shape the—you guessed it—public opinion that infests the unfolding of History. This is the oceanic force of Public Opinion that wages wars and causes schisms and demonizes others and poisons the wells of Truth with disinformation, propaganda, and abject lies. From religious leaders to politicians to CEOs, from popes to presidents to parliaments, we now exist in a world of metamorphic information. Your tailored news feeds preach the gospel of whatever multi-spectrum flavors you choose to subscribe to, as we wrap ourselves up in cherry-picked identities, even to the point of gender. What a wonderful world . . . Lippmann saw this happening during WWI. It’s only gotten exponentially worse as the goblin drums of ignorance pound for WWIII.
Think of 9/11 and all the flamboyant, empty rhetoric the W. Bush White House was shoving down our throats as the twin towers fell in 24-hour cycles for months on end, how the prime media outlets jumped aboard the bandwagon without question or criticism, and how so many dumb Americans slapped those made-in-China yellow ribbon and “support your troops” magnets on their cars and trucks. I was one of YOUR troops, and I’m thoroughly disgusted and ashamed to have been apart of that horrendous farce that destabilized the Middle East and north Africa and brought death and misery to so many millions of Iraqis and others in those regions of the Earth. If you’re not aware of the Afghanistan Papers, don’t be surprised; most media outlets chose not to cover it (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphi...) Bottom line: those in power lied to us, and most media outlets failed to ask the hard questions. We were duped by leaders of both parties, and have been, for the last two decades—not unlike Vietnam in some terribly harsh ways. When will the madness cease? Most likely when warmongering is no longer profitable. (I started writing this before Trump issued the drone-strike against Suleimani; may the tit-for-tat “War on Terror” go forth for another hundred years, or may a giant comet cleave this planet in twain, ridding us of so much mindless myopia.)
I feel it’s a losing battle in a very protracted war, this War on Truth. The canary in the coal mine is long since dead. The unregulated media, the unregulated internet, politicians without morals, and military leaders drinking the cool-aid of some abstract victory parade, have allowed the deplorables and troll farms and militant foreign cyber-units a solid foothold on the dissemination of disinformation and the fomentation of conspiracies and lies, which “the Right” seems to embrace far easier than “the Left”. The predators of deception know their target audiences—they are undereducated, lack even basic critical thinking skills, and are suckered by modern-day televangelists of every stripe, and these deplorable forces prey upon these demographics fully, sowing dissent, division, and open hostility. Disinformation is now weaponized, and we are all pawns in the great chess game for the Future. Lippmann published this in 1922. Sadly, it is still extremely relevant. Adam Gopnik, in a book review of how dictatorships conform to a style, summarized the difference between Left and Right methodologies well: “Where the Marxist heritage, being theory-minded and principle-bound, involves the primacy of the text, right-wing despotism, being romantic and charismatic, is buoyed by the shared spell cast between an orator and his mob” (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...). Isn’t it interesting how one side favors the written word, while the other side favors the screaming dude on the soapbox, across cultures and creeds? The books reviewed basically looked at dictators before the Internet. Does Twitter now count as a forum for screeds with our 8-second attention spans? I hardly think so. Any moron can hammer vitriol through his keyboard these days. Every village idiot has a pocket computer, and Sinclair Broadcasting, Fox News, Breitbart, Alex Jones, Russian cyber units, and the basement-dwelling demagogues on 4Chan/8Chan know this intimately. It is a War on Truth, and Facts, and elemental Morality.
“At the core of every moral code there is a picture of human nature, a map of the universe, and a version of history. To human nature (of the sort conceived), in a universe (of the kind imagined), after a history (so understood), the rules of the code apply. So far as the facts of personality, of the environment and of memory are different, by so far the rules of the code are difficult to apply with success. Now every moral code has to conceive human psychology, the material world, and tradition some way or other. But in the codes that are under the influence of science, the conception is known to be a hypothesis, whereas in the codes that come unexamined from the past or bubble up from the caverns of the mind, the conception is not taken as an hypothesis demanding proof or contradiction, but as a fiction accepted without question. In the one case, amnestying is humble about his beliefs, because he knows they are tentative and incomplete; in the other he is dogmatic, because his belief is a completed myth. The moralist who submits to the scientific discipline knows that though he does not know everything, he is in the way of knowing something; the dogmatist, using a myth, believes himself to share part of the insight of omniscience, though he lacks the criteria by which to tell truth from error. For the distinguishing mark of a myth is that truth and error, fact and fable, report and fantasy, are all on the same plane of credibility.
The math is, then not necessarily false. It might happen to be wholly true. It may happen to be partly true. If it has affected human conduct a long time, it is almost certain to contain much that is profoundly and importantly true. What a myth never contains is the critical power to separate truths from its errors. For that power comes only by realizing that no human opinion, whatever its supposed origin, is too exalted for the test of evidence, that every opinion is only somebody’s opinion. And if you ask why the test of evidence is preferable to any other, there is no answer unless you are willing to use the test in order to test it” (pp. 115-6).
Pretty clever. Basically what I think he’s trying to say is exactly what Fantasyland summarized profoundly: magical thinking, then in the ashes of the First World War, and so much more powerfully today in the moral lawlessness of the World-wide Web, has bewitched untold millions.
But after going deep into the issue of stereotypes and moral codes, Lippmann summarizes: “That is one reason why it is so dangerous to generalize about human nature. A loving father can be a sour boss, an earnest municipal reformer, and rapacious jingo abroad. His family life, his business career, his politics, and his foreign policy rest on totally different versions of what others are like and of how he should act. These versions differ by [moral] codes in the same person, the codes differ somewhat among persons in the same social set, differ widely as between social sets, and between two nations, or two colors, may differ to the point where there is no common assumption whatever. That is why people professing the same stock of religious beliefs can go to war. The element of their belief which determines conduct is that view of the facts which they assume.
That is where [moral] codes enter so subtly and so pervasively into the making of public opinion. The orthodoxy theory holds that a public opinion constitutes a moral judgment on a group of facts. The theory I am suggesting is that, in the present state of education [in 1922 USA], a public opinion is primarily a moralized and codified version of the facts. I am arguing that the pattern of stereotypes at the center of our codes largely determines what group of facts we shall see, and in what light we shall see them. That is why, with the best will in the world, the news policy of a journal tends to support its editorial policy; why a capitalist sees one set of facts, and certain aspects of human nature, literally sees them; his socialist opponent another set and other aspects, and why each regards the other as unreasonable or perverse, when the real difference between them is a difference of perception. That difference is imposed by the difference between the capitalist and the socialist pattern of stereotypes. ‘There are no classes in America,’ writes an American editor. ‘The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,’ says the Communist Manifesto. If you have the editor’s pattern in your mind, you will see vividly the facts that confirm it, vaguely and ineffectively those that contradict. If you have the communist pattern, you will not only look for different things, but you will see with a totally different emphasis what you and the editor happen to see in common” (pp. 117-8).
This is a scholarly work that spans a spectrum, and even though it’s dated, it is easy enough to see the parallelisms between then and now. He examines the failings of mass media (newspapers) and what it takes to tell the Truth (“The study of error is not only in the highest degree prophylactic, but it serves as a stimulating introduction to the study of truth. As our minds become deeply aware of their own subjectivism, we find a zest in objective method that is not otherwise there. We see vividly, as normally we should not, the enormous mischief and casual cruelty of our prejudices. And the destruction of a prejudice, through painful at first, because of its connection with our self-respect, gives an immense relief and a fine pride when it is successfully done” [p. 368]); he advocates for social science to be taken seriously and professionally; he goes back to Plato and Aristotle to philosophize about what makes good, honest, authentic, and self-less politicians (“So many of the grimaces men make at each other go with a flutter of their pulse, that they are not all of them important. And where so much is uncertain, where so many actions have to be carried out on guesses, the demand upon the reserves of mere decency is enormous, and it is necessary to live as if good will would work. We cannot prove in every instance that it will, nor why hatred, intolerance, suspicion, bigotry, secrecy, fears, and lying are the seven deadly sins against public opinion. We can only insist that they have no place in the appeal to reason, that in the longer run they are a poison; and taking our stand upon a view of the world which outlasts our own predicaments, and our own lives, we can cherish a hearty prejudice against them” [pp. 374-5]); and, he attempts to disentangle the various forms of collaborative community (“The present fundamentally invisible system of government is so intricate that most people have given up trying to follow it, and because they do not try, they are tempted to think it comparatively simple. It is, on the contrary, elusive, concealed, opaque” [p. 353]).
This might be the most portentous of Lippmann’s reflections however, after explaining the creation of national public opinion leading the US into WWI, and what transpired with President Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” speech in 1918, a perfect utilization of mass media at that time to manufacture consent through propaganda:
“Within the life of the generation now in control of affairs, persuasion has become a self-conscious art and a regular organ of popular government. None of us begins to understand the consequences, but it is no daring prophecy to say that the knowledge of how to create consent will alter every political calculation and modify every political premise. Under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the word alone, the old constants of our thinking have become variables. It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy; that the knowledge needed for the management of human affairs comes up spontaneously from the human heart. Where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception, and to forms of persuasion that we cannot verify. It has been demonstrated that we cannot reply upon intuition, conscience, or the accidents of casual opinion if we are to deal with the world beyond our reach” (p. 228).
I believe, with sad humility, that the United States of America is going through its death throes. There is no way to bridge the chasm we’ve created. The Soviet Union experiment burned out in under eighty years before it devolved into a strong-armed plutocracy, but that was a bloody disaster from the very beginning. The US is doing likewise, albeit more slowly, but the pace is accelerating, and I wonder if the endgame will be strangely similar. I don’t think the capitulation of the entire GOP to a demented moron, a pathological liar (https://apnews.com/8e0783c70703d7b041...), and a crotch-grabbing racist is a desperate grasp at what’s left of their power-hold. I think a poorly educated populace, the disenfranchisement of millions within the non-caucasian lower classes, the disease of rabid disinformation (thanks in large part to the elimination of the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine in 1987, and now the complete and utter lack of accountability upon the Social Media moguls), as well as the astounding amount of money pissed away on the election process itself, are all symptoms of what could be the end of this tumultuous Republic. In 2008, Fareed Zakaria published The Post-American World. In December of 2019, Yoni Appelbaum wrote a depressing article on “How America Ends” (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...). We are living in the deathgasms of Zakaria’s idea, as the wrecking ball of Trump and his cronies and sycophant followers pull us all into the abyss of History, exactly as bin Laden and Putin and Xi Jinping dreamt/dream about. Like the melting of the ice caps, this is a slow-motion process, and most people have incredibly short attention spans, are easily distracted by banal pap, and have neither an accurate sense of history nor an honest vision of the future. They want what they want exactly when they want it. This is our undoing, and the forces against us know that precisely.
Think of 9/11 and all the flamboyant, empty rhetoric the W. Bush White House was shoving down our throats as the twin towers fell in 24-hour cycles for months on end, how the prime media outlets jumped aboard the bandwagon without question or criticism, and how so many dumb Americans slapped those made-in-China yellow ribbon and “support your troops” magnets on their cars and trucks. I was one of YOUR troops, and I’m thoroughly disgusted and ashamed to have been apart of that horrendous farce that destabilized the Middle East and north Africa and brought death and misery to so many millions of Iraqis and others in those regions of the Earth. If you’re not aware of the Afghanistan Papers, don’t be surprised; most media outlets chose not to cover it (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphi...) Bottom line: those in power lied to us, and most media outlets failed to ask the hard questions. We were duped by leaders of both parties, and have been, for the last two decades—not unlike Vietnam in some terribly harsh ways. When will the madness cease? Most likely when warmongering is no longer profitable. (I started writing this before Trump issued the drone-strike against Suleimani; may the tit-for-tat “War on Terror” go forth for another hundred years, or may a giant comet cleave this planet in twain, ridding us of so much mindless myopia.)
I feel it’s a losing battle in a very protracted war, this War on Truth. The canary in the coal mine is long since dead. The unregulated media, the unregulated internet, politicians without morals, and military leaders drinking the cool-aid of some abstract victory parade, have allowed the deplorables and troll farms and militant foreign cyber-units a solid foothold on the dissemination of disinformation and the fomentation of conspiracies and lies, which “the Right” seems to embrace far easier than “the Left”. The predators of deception know their target audiences—they are undereducated, lack even basic critical thinking skills, and are suckered by modern-day televangelists of every stripe, and these deplorable forces prey upon these demographics fully, sowing dissent, division, and open hostility. Disinformation is now weaponized, and we are all pawns in the great chess game for the Future. Lippmann published this in 1922. Sadly, it is still extremely relevant. Adam Gopnik, in a book review of how dictatorships conform to a style, summarized the difference between Left and Right methodologies well: “Where the Marxist heritage, being theory-minded and principle-bound, involves the primacy of the text, right-wing despotism, being romantic and charismatic, is buoyed by the shared spell cast between an orator and his mob” (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...). Isn’t it interesting how one side favors the written word, while the other side favors the screaming dude on the soapbox, across cultures and creeds? The books reviewed basically looked at dictators before the Internet. Does Twitter now count as a forum for screeds with our 8-second attention spans? I hardly think so. Any moron can hammer vitriol through his keyboard these days. Every village idiot has a pocket computer, and Sinclair Broadcasting, Fox News, Breitbart, Alex Jones, Russian cyber units, and the basement-dwelling demagogues on 4Chan/8Chan know this intimately. It is a War on Truth, and Facts, and elemental Morality.
“At the core of every moral code there is a picture of human nature, a map of the universe, and a version of history. To human nature (of the sort conceived), in a universe (of the kind imagined), after a history (so understood), the rules of the code apply. So far as the facts of personality, of the environment and of memory are different, by so far the rules of the code are difficult to apply with success. Now every moral code has to conceive human psychology, the material world, and tradition some way or other. But in the codes that are under the influence of science, the conception is known to be a hypothesis, whereas in the codes that come unexamined from the past or bubble up from the caverns of the mind, the conception is not taken as an hypothesis demanding proof or contradiction, but as a fiction accepted without question. In the one case, amnestying is humble about his beliefs, because he knows they are tentative and incomplete; in the other he is dogmatic, because his belief is a completed myth. The moralist who submits to the scientific discipline knows that though he does not know everything, he is in the way of knowing something; the dogmatist, using a myth, believes himself to share part of the insight of omniscience, though he lacks the criteria by which to tell truth from error. For the distinguishing mark of a myth is that truth and error, fact and fable, report and fantasy, are all on the same plane of credibility.
The math is, then not necessarily false. It might happen to be wholly true. It may happen to be partly true. If it has affected human conduct a long time, it is almost certain to contain much that is profoundly and importantly true. What a myth never contains is the critical power to separate truths from its errors. For that power comes only by realizing that no human opinion, whatever its supposed origin, is too exalted for the test of evidence, that every opinion is only somebody’s opinion. And if you ask why the test of evidence is preferable to any other, there is no answer unless you are willing to use the test in order to test it” (pp. 115-6).
Pretty clever. Basically what I think he’s trying to say is exactly what Fantasyland summarized profoundly: magical thinking, then in the ashes of the First World War, and so much more powerfully today in the moral lawlessness of the World-wide Web, has bewitched untold millions.
But after going deep into the issue of stereotypes and moral codes, Lippmann summarizes: “That is one reason why it is so dangerous to generalize about human nature. A loving father can be a sour boss, an earnest municipal reformer, and rapacious jingo abroad. His family life, his business career, his politics, and his foreign policy rest on totally different versions of what others are like and of how he should act. These versions differ by [moral] codes in the same person, the codes differ somewhat among persons in the same social set, differ widely as between social sets, and between two nations, or two colors, may differ to the point where there is no common assumption whatever. That is why people professing the same stock of religious beliefs can go to war. The element of their belief which determines conduct is that view of the facts which they assume.
That is where [moral] codes enter so subtly and so pervasively into the making of public opinion. The orthodoxy theory holds that a public opinion constitutes a moral judgment on a group of facts. The theory I am suggesting is that, in the present state of education [in 1922 USA], a public opinion is primarily a moralized and codified version of the facts. I am arguing that the pattern of stereotypes at the center of our codes largely determines what group of facts we shall see, and in what light we shall see them. That is why, with the best will in the world, the news policy of a journal tends to support its editorial policy; why a capitalist sees one set of facts, and certain aspects of human nature, literally sees them; his socialist opponent another set and other aspects, and why each regards the other as unreasonable or perverse, when the real difference between them is a difference of perception. That difference is imposed by the difference between the capitalist and the socialist pattern of stereotypes. ‘There are no classes in America,’ writes an American editor. ‘The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,’ says the Communist Manifesto. If you have the editor’s pattern in your mind, you will see vividly the facts that confirm it, vaguely and ineffectively those that contradict. If you have the communist pattern, you will not only look for different things, but you will see with a totally different emphasis what you and the editor happen to see in common” (pp. 117-8).
This is a scholarly work that spans a spectrum, and even though it’s dated, it is easy enough to see the parallelisms between then and now. He examines the failings of mass media (newspapers) and what it takes to tell the Truth (“The study of error is not only in the highest degree prophylactic, but it serves as a stimulating introduction to the study of truth. As our minds become deeply aware of their own subjectivism, we find a zest in objective method that is not otherwise there. We see vividly, as normally we should not, the enormous mischief and casual cruelty of our prejudices. And the destruction of a prejudice, through painful at first, because of its connection with our self-respect, gives an immense relief and a fine pride when it is successfully done” [p. 368]); he advocates for social science to be taken seriously and professionally; he goes back to Plato and Aristotle to philosophize about what makes good, honest, authentic, and self-less politicians (“So many of the grimaces men make at each other go with a flutter of their pulse, that they are not all of them important. And where so much is uncertain, where so many actions have to be carried out on guesses, the demand upon the reserves of mere decency is enormous, and it is necessary to live as if good will would work. We cannot prove in every instance that it will, nor why hatred, intolerance, suspicion, bigotry, secrecy, fears, and lying are the seven deadly sins against public opinion. We can only insist that they have no place in the appeal to reason, that in the longer run they are a poison; and taking our stand upon a view of the world which outlasts our own predicaments, and our own lives, we can cherish a hearty prejudice against them” [pp. 374-5]); and, he attempts to disentangle the various forms of collaborative community (“The present fundamentally invisible system of government is so intricate that most people have given up trying to follow it, and because they do not try, they are tempted to think it comparatively simple. It is, on the contrary, elusive, concealed, opaque” [p. 353]).
This might be the most portentous of Lippmann’s reflections however, after explaining the creation of national public opinion leading the US into WWI, and what transpired with President Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” speech in 1918, a perfect utilization of mass media at that time to manufacture consent through propaganda:
“Within the life of the generation now in control of affairs, persuasion has become a self-conscious art and a regular organ of popular government. None of us begins to understand the consequences, but it is no daring prophecy to say that the knowledge of how to create consent will alter every political calculation and modify every political premise. Under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the word alone, the old constants of our thinking have become variables. It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy; that the knowledge needed for the management of human affairs comes up spontaneously from the human heart. Where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception, and to forms of persuasion that we cannot verify. It has been demonstrated that we cannot reply upon intuition, conscience, or the accidents of casual opinion if we are to deal with the world beyond our reach” (p. 228).
I believe, with sad humility, that the United States of America is going through its death throes. There is no way to bridge the chasm we’ve created. The Soviet Union experiment burned out in under eighty years before it devolved into a strong-armed plutocracy, but that was a bloody disaster from the very beginning. The US is doing likewise, albeit more slowly, but the pace is accelerating, and I wonder if the endgame will be strangely similar. I don’t think the capitulation of the entire GOP to a demented moron, a pathological liar (https://apnews.com/8e0783c70703d7b041...), and a crotch-grabbing racist is a desperate grasp at what’s left of their power-hold. I think a poorly educated populace, the disenfranchisement of millions within the non-caucasian lower classes, the disease of rabid disinformation (thanks in large part to the elimination of the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine in 1987, and now the complete and utter lack of accountability upon the Social Media moguls), as well as the astounding amount of money pissed away on the election process itself, are all symptoms of what could be the end of this tumultuous Republic. In 2008, Fareed Zakaria published The Post-American World. In December of 2019, Yoni Appelbaum wrote a depressing article on “How America Ends” (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...). We are living in the deathgasms of Zakaria’s idea, as the wrecking ball of Trump and his cronies and sycophant followers pull us all into the abyss of History, exactly as bin Laden and Putin and Xi Jinping dreamt/dream about. Like the melting of the ice caps, this is a slow-motion process, and most people have incredibly short attention spans, are easily distracted by banal pap, and have neither an accurate sense of history nor an honest vision of the future. They want what they want exactly when they want it. This is our undoing, and the forces against us know that precisely.
March 27, 2022
Cleary an incredible insight into the views of a man who had great influence over leaders in economics, media, and government throughout the 20th century in the U.S. There are valid arguments here about stereotypes and biases that all people have that might hinder their ability to make good decisions in society. However, as many have noted, at the core of Lippmann's worldview is a distrust of ordinary people and their capacity for knowing what's in their best interests.
I found much of this to be a slog, more than I expected, but a very worthwhile read.
I found much of this to be a slog, more than I expected, but a very worthwhile read.
January 16, 2019
Lippman’s Pulitzer Prize winner can be tedious, muddled and pedantic but reveals the occasional flash of genius.
Published in 1922, ‘Public Opinion’ is considered a trailblazing social study of the consumption of news and information in democratic societies.
Although tremendously influential in its day, the book is an unwieldy mess and tangents abound, to wit: Lippman’s thoughts on history, psychoanalysis, government in a Jeffersonian democracy, Communism, Plato’s Republic, Et al. spill out in all directions across a narrative that eventually boils down to the following:
Citizens and politicians in western democratic societies (particularly the U.S.) cannot devote enough time and research to every issue facing the community in order to make the best informed decisions. The voter cannot glean from the approx. 30 minutes a day he or she reads the newspaper enough information or understanding to grasp the complexity of an issue that will move his or her vote for one candidate over another, in turn the elected representative cannot alone make an informed decision for the same reason, etc.
Lippmann’s proposed solution is the establishment of ‘Intelligence Bureaus’, these are trained researchers and social scientists that use verifiable facts and data to advise political leaders and citizens on the issues.
As stated above, much of the book is overwrought and rambling. Many meandering lectures could have been cut, by my estimation more than 100 pages and several chapters could have been edited from the finished product and a leaner, more coherent argument would have resulted. It varies too far afield into near-Freudian psychoanalysis at one point all the way to the recent elections of the author’s day.
Long-winded expeditions into debates on Capitol Hill surrounding US foreign interventions create a fog. The examples of language used in political debates have value as political science but aren’t summarized sufficiently to reinforce the main point.
The closest approximation to Lippmann’s Intelligence bureau would be the modern Washington DC think tank, although these institutions are far from unbiased. One could also argue that Lippmann’s legacy lives in the daily briefings of the White House and The Capitol. Alas, the internet has improved access to information since Lippman’s day but the same stubborn problems of time and comprehension for the citizen remain.
The healthiest takeaway from the book is a self-examination, a reflection on how the daily information we consume along with the distorting lenses of our experiences, internal stereotypes and prejudices shapes our viewpoints and influences our political passions.
Published in 1922, ‘Public Opinion’ is considered a trailblazing social study of the consumption of news and information in democratic societies.
Although tremendously influential in its day, the book is an unwieldy mess and tangents abound, to wit: Lippman’s thoughts on history, psychoanalysis, government in a Jeffersonian democracy, Communism, Plato’s Republic, Et al. spill out in all directions across a narrative that eventually boils down to the following:
Citizens and politicians in western democratic societies (particularly the U.S.) cannot devote enough time and research to every issue facing the community in order to make the best informed decisions. The voter cannot glean from the approx. 30 minutes a day he or she reads the newspaper enough information or understanding to grasp the complexity of an issue that will move his or her vote for one candidate over another, in turn the elected representative cannot alone make an informed decision for the same reason, etc.
Lippmann’s proposed solution is the establishment of ‘Intelligence Bureaus’, these are trained researchers and social scientists that use verifiable facts and data to advise political leaders and citizens on the issues.
As stated above, much of the book is overwrought and rambling. Many meandering lectures could have been cut, by my estimation more than 100 pages and several chapters could have been edited from the finished product and a leaner, more coherent argument would have resulted. It varies too far afield into near-Freudian psychoanalysis at one point all the way to the recent elections of the author’s day.
Long-winded expeditions into debates on Capitol Hill surrounding US foreign interventions create a fog. The examples of language used in political debates have value as political science but aren’t summarized sufficiently to reinforce the main point.
The closest approximation to Lippmann’s Intelligence bureau would be the modern Washington DC think tank, although these institutions are far from unbiased. One could also argue that Lippmann’s legacy lives in the daily briefings of the White House and The Capitol. Alas, the internet has improved access to information since Lippman’s day but the same stubborn problems of time and comprehension for the citizen remain.
The healthiest takeaway from the book is a self-examination, a reflection on how the daily information we consume along with the distorting lenses of our experiences, internal stereotypes and prejudices shapes our viewpoints and influences our political passions.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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April 18, 2023I kept finding myself thinking that this book is about the most direct precursor to the career of Neil Postman and other political commentators (Postman being political, but mostly writing about media and technology and education) that I could otherwise imagine. There's a part of me that didn't really know what I was heading into with this book and had kind of managed to expect a kind of HL Mencken type book, and maybe that's because I was layering Walter Lippmann with Walter Winchell, and because the audiobook reader of this book sounded enough like Keith Olberman to make me think of Mencken.
But instead of Mencken, we get someone more akin to later political commentators and thinkers like Richard Hofstadter. This book is not a criticism of mass culture, public opinion, the media, and propaganda, but instead a very clearly articulated expository examination of those ideas. It's a breakthrough book because so much of what you read in this book is not only still true to today (with necessary changes because of technology --- Lippmann is writing this before tv and more or less before radio).
He begins with an image of a group citizens from various nations sitting around a parlor not knowing that WWI has just erupted and in the absence of news from that front, they do not know yet they are enemies. And for some amount of time, there's a gap between the actual events and the knowledge where they find themselves. He uses this to sort of explain the basic concept of his whole book, about how people form opinions on news, politics, war, etc out of nothing, what influences those decisions, what can influence those decisions, and how that process works within individuals and what it says about them.
The book then is primarily a discussion of multiple venues of opinion such as politics, the media (specifically newspapers), local versus national and international idea, political parties etc. I won't get into all the different spaces, but there's a lot of very clear insight here, and he addresses that the overflow of information because of mass media (which will only get more massive) how created the need, the responsibility, and the inevitability of needing principles guiding how these decisions are made or else they will be manipulated. We know, and he knows, it will manipulated of course.
But instead of Mencken, we get someone more akin to later political commentators and thinkers like Richard Hofstadter. This book is not a criticism of mass culture, public opinion, the media, and propaganda, but instead a very clearly articulated expository examination of those ideas. It's a breakthrough book because so much of what you read in this book is not only still true to today (with necessary changes because of technology --- Lippmann is writing this before tv and more or less before radio).
He begins with an image of a group citizens from various nations sitting around a parlor not knowing that WWI has just erupted and in the absence of news from that front, they do not know yet they are enemies. And for some amount of time, there's a gap between the actual events and the knowledge where they find themselves. He uses this to sort of explain the basic concept of his whole book, about how people form opinions on news, politics, war, etc out of nothing, what influences those decisions, what can influence those decisions, and how that process works within individuals and what it says about them.
The book then is primarily a discussion of multiple venues of opinion such as politics, the media (specifically newspapers), local versus national and international idea, political parties etc. I won't get into all the different spaces, but there's a lot of very clear insight here, and he addresses that the overflow of information because of mass media (which will only get more massive) how created the need, the responsibility, and the inevitability of needing principles guiding how these decisions are made or else they will be manipulated. We know, and he knows, it will manipulated of course.
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